They had been engaged for two months when Kane had been interviewed for the nuclear-power program by Admiral Rickover, the famed father of the nuclear navy.

One detail about Kang's case stands out in retrospect: at the time of his crimes, he was the head of China's nuclear-power program, the most aggressive nuclear-power expansion in the world.

He was the Hungarian signatory to the agreement on building the Friendship I oil pipeline from the Soviet Union and to the documents on the nuclear-power programme.

I am among those not yet convinced either that a safe nuclear-power program cannot be developed or that such a program can be made superfluous by conservation and alternative energy sources.

The agency put him in charge of its nuclear-power program in April 1994 when it was having difficulties with its generating plants, Indian Point 3 in Westchester County and James A. FitzPatrick in Oswego County.

Under the agreement, India would allow inspection of its civilian nuclear-power programs by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

September 15, 2005: Ahmadinejad stated at a United Nations high-level summit that Iran has the right to develop a civil nuclear-power program within the terms of the 1970 treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Moreover, with nearly two-fifths of the world's population living within 100km of a coastline, finding suitable seaside sites for initiation or expansion of a nuclear-power programme is no longer easy.

The governments of South Korea, Japan and Taiwan already support some of the world's most sophisticated nuclear-power programs.

When Kang Rixin, the head of China's nuclear-power program, was sentenced to life in prison last November for taking bribes, it was a troubling enough piece of news.